996 Sketches of the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. 
annual meeting, the valuable character of our programme, are all 
an earnest of growth and active labor. Let us all lend the promis- 
ing youngster our warmest wishes for a vigorous and useful career, 
and join in the cheer, long life, and a busy one, to the Western 
Society of Naturalists. 
SKETCHES OF THE CASCADE MOUNTAINS OF 
OREGON. 
BY E. D. COPE. 
To Cascade Mountains of Oregon are destined to be the favor- 
ite resort of tourists who love all that is most beautiful, im- 
pressive and wild in mountain scenery. Lying over one of the 
greatest of the fractures of the earth’s crust, they represent the 
remains of successive outflows of molten material at its source. 
The basis of the range is eruptive, and displays the irregularities 
of surface due to such origin within comparatively recent geological 
ages, and to the rapid erosion which naturally occurs in a humid 
climate. Thus gorges of great depth traverse its masses, and preci- 
pices of tremendous height bound many of its elevations. Beautiful 
lakes nestle in its depressions, and waterfalls leap from level to 
level on their way to the tributaries of the Columbia. All is 
clothed in sombre forest of conifers, of larger proportions or more 
elegant foliage than can be found in any other region. High above 
all these mountains tower at intervals along the range, the great 
snow-peaks which give the region its especial beauty. These are 
extinct volcanoes which raised themselves round vents which long 
remained open, and which poured out lava, scorie, pumice and 
ashes, after the great fissure was closed. 
The great lava outflow from the Cascade Mountain fissure is one 
of the most extensive the world has ever seen, and was one of the 
most destructive in its consequences. There were several distinct 
periods of outflow, two being especially distinguishable in the strati- 
graphy of central Oregon. Between the outflows from this and 
from lesser sources to the eastward, a country of eight hundred 
